Feelings of Competence amongst Individuals Experiencing Different Levels of Anxiety Sensitivity

The present investigation centered with on the study of Anxiety Sensitivity in the context of the experience of competence. Anxiety sensitivity is the fear of anxiety sensations, which arises from beliefs that these sensations have harmful somatic, social or psychological consequences proposed by Reiss and McNally (1985). Anxiety sensitivity differs from the traditional concept of anxiety. The term anxiety is usually defined as a diffuse, vague, very unpleasant feeling of fear and apprehension. It is a feeling of tension, fear or dread that occurs in response to a real or imagined threat. Anxiety sensitivity refers to individual differences in what people think will happen to them when they actually experience anxiety. Anxiety experience is related primarily with an anxiety provoking stimulus situation; anxiety-sensitivity is related to a cognitive framework which one has acquired, which can provoke a reaction of anxiety in absence of sufficiently powerful stimulus. Anxiety varies in intensity from mild to strong feelings of uneasiness and nervousness. Anxiety sensitivity is not the experience of anxiety, it is an increased alertness to stimuli, (signaling the possibility of becoming anxious, increasing worry about the possibility of becoming anxious and increasing motivation to avoid anxiety-provoking stimuli).Concepts of the fear of fear have been proposed by Goldstein and Chambless (1978) and by Reiss and McNally (1985). Reiss and Me Nally (1985) have analyzed the fear of fear into two component processes called anxiety expectancy and anxiety sensitivity. Anxiety expectancy is primarily an associative learning process in which the individual has learned that a given stimulus arouses anxiety or fear. Anxiety sensitivity is ah individual difference variable consisting of beliefs that the experience of anxiety or fear causes illness, embarrassment or additional anxiety. For example, the person may believe that a pounding heart is a sign of an impending heart attack of that it can be terribly embarrassing to have a growling stomach.Anxiety sensitivity is regarded as a major psychological problem of the present, high stressed society, which not only causes psychological harm, but is also manifest in various physical problems. Keogh and Birkley (1999) found that various forms of mental discomfort, sometimes even pathology, such as feelings of fear, insecurity, over excitement, worry, blood pressures that damages body equilibrium, insomnia, blood pressure, migraine, and imbalanced respiratory difficulties are possible outcomes of anxiety sensitivity. There is likelihood that the fear of anxiety sensations and belief in their negative outcomes may create in an individual the desire to desist from social contacts and generally withdraw himseliTherself and therefore encourage incompetent behaviour.A person high in anxiety sensitivity might worry that an inability to concentrate on a task is a sign of mental illness or that a rapid heart beat is a sign of an impending heart attack. The ability to concentrate on a task is the cause of incompetence.Competence is the dynamic ability to continue to demonstrate progressive achievement throughout ones career. It is not a static position of achieving something or being something, it is a process towards which the individual has to proceed all the time. The concept of competence encompasses not only the abilities required for the exercise of a professional activity, but also the set of behaviors, faculty of analysis, decision-making, transmission of information etc, considered necessary for the full performance of an occupation.Whites (1959, 1960, 1963) clarifies the concept of competence, and says that it is an effectance motive to explore the properties of the it leads to an accumulating knowledge of what can and cannot be done with the environment, its biological significance lies in this very property of developing competence.Smith (1968) believes that competence, is a constellation of attitudes towards one's self, based on the belief, that one has control of one's own life, that one is an origin and not a pawn. …